


Part Six: The Cause

by Apetslife



Series: John Silver Can't Get There From Here [8]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: AU from late S4, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, James Flint Is A God Of War, M/M, Massage, Pirates, Plenty Of Naval Jargon, Polyamory, Post-Canon Fix-It, Slavery, This John Silver Is Not A Bristol Tavernkeeper, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 03:32:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10800810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apetslife/pseuds/Apetslife
Summary: “Up, up,” he calls to Silver down in the waist where he’s sitting with Shaw and a few of the other men, splicing rope.  Silver looks up at him.  “Time to learn to fight at sea.”“It’s terrible when he gets like this,” Silver tells Shaw, as if Flint can’t hear him.  “All bloody-minded and cheerful.  Here, take this bit.  The Captain calls, and I must answer.”  Flint grins benevolently at them both and fetches the sticks he’d stashed near the mainmast in anticipation of this moment.





	Part Six: The Cause

**Author's Note:**

> One of the best descriptions I've seen of Black Sails is that it's a power fantasy for oppressed groups. And I thought, fuck yes. Let's keep that going. Silver and Madi and Flint and Anne and Max and Jack fight the good fight.

**THEN**

The cabin is crowded, with Silver and Flint, Anne and Rackham, and Murphy of the _Lady Mary_ with his quartermaster Fitzgerald. Flint had insisted they all come aboard the newly-floated _Penelope_ , though, since the lot of them traipsing out to the warship or to the full-rigged _Lady Mary_ would definitely cause comment.

Silver still wishes they had just a bit more breathing room.

“So we’re in agreement.” Flint lays his hand flat on the map of Jamaica and her surrounding waters. “Everyone understands their role?”

“My men,” Fitzgerald speaks up suddenly, for the first time, from his place behind Murphy’s chair. He’s a wizened little man, brown as a nut from a life at sea, and Silver doesn’t know anything about him. “Most will sail for the pay offered. Some are grumbling a bit at not taking the cargo for resale. Some don’t want to go up against a flotilla at all, even one as small as this, and they’ll stay ashore when we sail. We’ll be light-handed.”

Silver nods at this, ready for it.

“Our own crew has some who’ve lost the taste for battle, so we’ve accounted for this. Queen Madi has been out among her people, and has volunteers ready to fill any open positions on your crews. Seasoned men, fighters, and might need a little schooling in the ways of sailing, but they’re steady and reliable.” He scans the faces on the table. Jack is pulling a face, but Jack hates having non-sailors on board. Murphy looks thoughtful. 

“Your sponsor must have deep pockets,” he says finally. “We’ll need seven men, and the sooner the better, to get them trained to their shipside roles. We sail in three days?” Silver confirms with a nod. “Then I have much to do. Gentlemen. Ma’am.” He nods to Anne, who scowls, and takes his leave, Fitzgerald trailing behind.

“What’s to stop these men who stay behind from spreading news of our plan far and wide?” Flint asks almost idly into the silence after their footsteps fade. 

Anne, unexpectedly, is the one to answer him. “Our people in all the ports is ears to the ground on this. And Max has spies everywhere. They hear a whiff of gossip they know to kill it quick.” She glances at Silver from under her hat. “An’ maybe this one could make a speech or something.”

“I’ve spoken to ours already,” Silver says evenly. “I’m more concerned about what happens if Max changes her mind again because the governor of Jamaica has a better offer for her.”

Anne comes up out of her seat with a lunge, snarling, and Flint and Silver both jerk in instinctive response, Fint forward, Silver back, and Silver’s heart is pounding and oh, yes, he has his answer now, and it doesn’t feel as good as he thought it might, but now he knows. 

“Calm down,” Jack says, and tugs a resisting Anne back to her seat. “Darling, really. You mustn’t let him provoke you like this, you know he’s an ass. Silver, we have a very great deal of Max’s money in hand already for supplies and provisions and incentives to the crews; if you don’t trust her motives, at least trust her business sense.”

“All right,” Silver says, eyes never leaving Anne, who’s staring back at him with her own narrowed, hard gaze. “But I don’t have to like it.” 

*

**NOW**

“Mark seven,” the leadsman calls from his precarious place over the rail near the bow, his voice still carrying to where Flint is braced in the stern of the _Penelope_ under the snauw sail, eyes trained on her rigging and how she’s handling the wind and the current, running under minimal sail as she is. 

“And a half seven,” comes the call, and the shipping chart in his mind matches precisely with the fathom depth. They’re exactly where they should be, standing out four miles from the coast of Hispaniola, waiting for the convoy to appear. 

“All hands, reef t’gallants and mains,” he calls, “Mr. De Groot, we’ll hold this position. Back and fill your sails. I want readings taken on the hour, we’re not to stray more than a half mile from this spot.”

“Aye Captain,” De Groot grumbles. “Pretty problem that will be, with the current pushing her like this.”

“I leave it in your very capable hands,” Flint answers with grand insincerity, and goes to find Silver.

Before the attack on Nassau, he’d trained Silver to use the sword with his crutch. Now, at sea, that won’t be possible. There’s no way to make it over the rail with a crutch and a sword in hand, and fighting quarters will be too tight to make it effective even if he could. He’d put forward his idea to Silver on their first morning out, curled together in the cot in their cabin, and Silver had gone quiet for a bit, then agreed. Now they’re here, more than three days early, and he’ll take his chance.

“Up, up,” he calls to Silver down in the waist where he’s sitting with Shaw and a few of the other men, splicing rope. Silver looks up at him. “Time to learn to fight at sea.”

“It’s terrible when he gets like this,” Silver tells Shaw, as if Flint can’t hear him. “All bloody-minded and cheerful. Here, take this bit. The Captain calls, and I must answer.” Flint grins benevolently at them both and fetches the sticks he’d stashed near the mainmast in anticipation of this moment.

“We’re not even using proper swords?” Silver’s brows are up when he reaches the main deck and is handed a piece of wood instead. 

“This is less about the positions and patterns, which you already know, and more about not falling on your ass and dying,” Flint points out, still cheerful, watching Silver’s balance and stance carefully as he swings the stick, taking its weight and measure. “It wouldn’t do much good if you were to accidentally gut yourself in your first practice.”

“Perhaps I should just stick to pistols,” Silver suggests, suddenly looking more apprehensive as he takes in the crowded, narrow deck, cluttered with rope and spars, buckets and lines and other obstacles, the men who aren’t doing a very good job hiding their curiosity even as they move around them at their tasks. All poised to trip a man with one leg moving uncautiously.

“Nonsense. They don’t fire half the time, and you won’t have time to reload. Or will you reconsider joining the vanguard?” Flint nearly holds his breath, watching Silver’s face, and his small hope dies when he sees those blue eyes go hard and his mouth set in determination.

“No. Let’s begin.” Silver swings the stick again in a sweep, then holds it properly in low guard, ready to start. James swallows his sigh, and sets his mind to the problem of Silver’s balance.

The first two exchanges are slow and measured. Familiar. The old drills that Flint had practiced every day for hours in his Navy years, now repurposed for piracy, and it still gives him a thrill of satisfaction. Attack, parry, retreat, parry, attack, guard, parry. Silver clearly remembers them too, and Flint lets him take his time on the unstable deck, stepping back with his false leg and finding it lower than expected, staggering then recovering more than once. He is already adjusting, though, and Flint is amazed yet again at his acrobat's grace, even encumbered as he is.

“Keep your weight on your right leg longer,” he instructs, voice low, even as he swings a side-cut towards Silver that he will need to twist to block. Middle strikes now. “Let it hold your weight until you are certain of your left, then shift. Yes, better.” Beads of sweat are already starting on Silver’s brow, and his face is a mask of concentration. He skips back easily, then forward again to strike back, the pattern complete. It would be completely inappropriate to kiss him now, Flint reminds himself, and forces himself to parry, guard, attack. 

Silver’s wooden peg hits a wet spot on the deck as he’s raising his stick to parry and it happens so fast Flint barely sees it, as his leg goes out from under him and then he’s flat on the deck.

Someone behind him snickers. Before he can think, Flint whirls. First a strike with the stick to the ribs, _there_ , doubling the man over, then a rap to the chin straightens him up, _there_ , a blur of long hair and a dirty shirt, he isn’t sure who this is but it doesn’t matter when his blood boils like this, a side-strike to the knee crumples it, and a reach and a yank with his free hand flips the man up, feet flying, and he lands on his back on the deck with a SLAM that has Barton, standing at the mainmast and how had Flint not noticed him there?--sucking air through his teeth in an impressed hiss.

Flint pivots away as the crewman, breath knocked out of him, flops like a fish on the deck and gapes and gasps for wind. The ring of faces around them is solemn, but not alarmed, and a few are more than admiring. 

“Anyone else want to find humor in a man learning actual fighting skills over great odds? Anyone else think they could do better on one leg, or even on two? Please do step forward if so, so we can address it now and then continue without further interruption,” he snarls.

Caleb Shaw steps forward hesitantly.

“You?” Flint can’t believe it. Caleb shakes his head vigorously in denial.

“Oh no, Captain. I ain’t laughing, wouldn’t even think of it. Only, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could I follow along with Mr. Silver’s lessons? Seems like that kind of thing might come in handy, us going into battle and all. And you putting Percy there down like that. With a stick. That’ll be handy too.”

This is so entirely opposite to anything Flint had expected to hear that he’s left floundering, standing still with a stick in his hand, staring at the group of his men and Madi’s, most of whom are nodding eagerly in agreement with what Shaw had asked. 

He looks at Silver, who’s up on his elbows and apparently unhurt, watching with interest as this all plays out.

“My hero,” Silver mouths at him, and then blows him a kiss, the absolute shit, but it least it knocks him out of his paralysis.

“If you’re not busy elsewhere, I don’t see why not,” he says, and tries not to make it sound reluctant. He’s not a proper swordmaster, not really. His own style is a mish-mash of things he’d learned in the Navy, private fencing lessons here and there when Hennessy thought to send him, and practical moves that have served him well in battle. But he supposes it couldn’t hurt. 

Caleb grins at him, the great idiot, and nods his head in a funny little salute. “Thank you, Captain. I’m Bosun this watch, I’ll make sure no one’s slacking at their posts. You lot, go roust some sticks,” he bellows at the crowd, who scatter smartly, and someone even remembers to haul away the still-gasping Percy. 

“Well, that was unexpected,” Silver murmurs to him as Flint helps him back to his feet.

“Now I’m going to have to train this whole lot?” Flint grumbles quietly, looking around at the group that’s already trickling back. “Though I suppose it won’t hurt to have you work on your footwork more while I’m pounding the basics into their heads.”

“That’s the spirit,” Silver says encouragingly, and stumps off to chivvy the other pirates into line. 

Flint takes a deep breath, scowls at the back of Silver’s head, and begins. 

“We’ll start with the basic guard positions, because if you can’t block an incoming strike, there’s no point learning anything else. Start with your feet so. Grasp your sword with two hands, so. Raise arms to here, and extend your blade…”

*

**THEN**

Silver takes Madi’s hand and helps her over the rail, and welcomes her to the deck of the _Penelope_ with a kiss. He’s nervous, he realizes with some humor. As if he’s introducing his wife to his lover, when in fact she’s just seeing his ship for the first time.

 _His ship_ , he replays in his memory with just a tinge of horror. Oh Jesus. He’s truly becoming a pirate, then.

“She is lovely, John,” Madi says admiringly, looking around, her musical voice turning the words almost into a caress, and he’s incredibly pleased. “Much smaller than the _Walrus,_ though, yes?”

“Much. The _Walrus_ was a full-rigged ship, and _Penelope_ is a sloop of war. See, she only has two masts, though there is a third stepped right against her mainmast there, for the snauw-sail. It’s not something you usually see in these waters, De Groot says, it’s a Dutch innovation, but it means we can raise an additional sail and have that much more speed and maneuverability.” She’s blinking at him, he sees, and he checks himself a little self-consciously. “Sorry.”

“No, that’s all right, my love,” she laughs a little and links her arm through his. “Show me your beautiful ship. Tell me all about her. After all, I will be counting on her to bring you there and back again to me safely.”

He has to kiss her again for that, before towing her forward to see the wheel, the mizzenmast and the rigging, the new pair of nine-pound bow chasers and their transoms, all the preparations they’ve made. The men watch curiously, but tug their forelocks or give little salutes when she passes; everyone on Nassau knows Madi Scott. It’s crowded on the ship, so close to departure; even the cabin is stacked high with bags of beans and rice and flour, and when Silver pushes open the door Flint looks up from between the two barrels that bracket his desk before standing.

“Madi,” he greets her with a wide smile. “Welcome aboard. I trust these pirates have been treating you with every courtesy?”

“Of course they have,” she takes his hands and kisses his cheek. “Your ship is beautiful, Captain. I have every faith that she and you will see this through in safety.”

“And you haven’t even seen her under sail! Anything we can’t outfight, we can certainly outrun,” Flint tells her with pride, and Silver has a sudden, visceral urge to go check the shot and powder stores again. Perhaps they will be able to fit just a bit more into the aft hold. He can’t help but smile at the way Flint lights up at the praise to his ship, though, at how he nearly preens under Madi’s admiration of her.

“I have my volunteers coming to the beach, under Ebiowe’s command,” she informs them both. “He will sail with the _Vainglorious,_ as he is my war second, and there is where the majority of my men will go, yes?”

“Yes,” Flint confirms, and pulls a list from under a pile of charts on his desk. “Fifteen to the _Vainglorious_ , seven to the _Lady Mary_ and five to us.”

“They have been instructed to follow your word as if it were my own,” Madi says, and her chin lifts, that haughty authority settling around her naturally. “They have agreed to this. I trust you will treat this responsibility with grave care.”

“Of course,” Flint actually bows his head to her. “You have my word.”

“Excellent. I must ask, though, Captain. When this raid is over, when you sail back to us, where will you put the rescued men, women, and children?” She glances around the tightly-packed cabin. “I am not entirely sure where you will put _you_ , at least until some of these stores have been eaten.”

Flint grins at her. “This is why the _Vainglorious_ is so important. A warship like that is not just a fighting ship. It’s a troop transport. They’ll have space for every soul we rescue and more. We just have to keep Rackham out of trouble long enough to prevent him getting her sunk from under him.”

“He’s not that bad,” Silver protests.

“In an open sea with no obstacles or navigational challenges,” Flint grumbles, but subsides when Silver cuts him a look. 

“We don’t have much time,” Madi tugs Silver’s arm gently. “I want to see the rest before you go, so I can have a good picture in mind while you are away.” 

Seeing the well-hidden worry in her eyes, he cups her cheek in his palm, running his thumb over the clean, heartbreaking curve of her cheekbone, and then kisses her, soft and deep and sweetly, reassuring her without words as best he can. When they part, he glances at Flint, who’s looking away politely but not seeming embarrassed at all, and he smiles.

“Come on then. I’ll finish the tour, and we’ll welcome your men aboard. We sail with the evening tide, so we’d best be quick about it.”

“And Captain? I will expect your return as well,” Madi says sternly at the door, holding Silver back for a moment. “You have promised me more books, as well as teaching me to shoot a rifle more accurately, and pistols as well, and I hold you to those vows.”

“Yes ma’am. Madi.” Flint says, and smiles down at his hands.

*

**NOW**

The _Vainglorious_ never leaves eyesight as they claw their way back against the main shipping current towards Kingston. It’s not ideal--they’ll be to the windward of the slaver convoy when they encounter it--but it’s essential to Flint’s plan that they appear as harmless as possible. 

He stands by the wheel, fidgeting with his ring, one eye on DeGroot who has the helm, one on Barton, who as it turns out, had apprenticed to a swordsmith in a former life and is just as capable of taking the second watch students through their sword drills as Flint, who’s already heartily sick of correcting grips on hilts and placement of feet on the deck. How teaching Silver to stay alive had turned his ship into a floating fencing school, he’ll never figure precisely. He can’t argue with the results, though, as he sees Caleb Shaw--large, clumsy, slow Shaw--handily parry an overhand swing from Darby and very capably riposte.

He hopes it doesn’t come to blades, but if it does, he thinks, he might just have the best trained crew in the Caribbean.

Catching De Groot’s baleful eye on him, he winces a little and fades back towards his cabin. Sailing into the wind and across the current like this, speaking to their Ship’s Master is probably a poor idea right now. The man already looks about ready to spit nails. Perhaps he’ll just go check on Silver.

The cabin is already blessedly free of most of the provisions they’d stored there. Abovedecks storage is chancy at best, prone to damp and water spoilage, and they’d used most of it first, the flour and salt pork, even the rum. Only two bags of beans are still stowed beneath the cot where Silver sits, his stump resting in a bucket of water, rubbing his thigh.

“You all right?” Flint asks reflexively, closing the door behind him. Silver has been working hard with the sword, and is much steadier on his feet, but it’s clear that this is more time on the peg-leg than he’s used to.

“Just sore,” Silver grunts, knuckling the big muscle above his knee. He’s not pale or sweating, Flint confirms. No sign of fever, though he’s moving with the pained stiffness of a much older man.

“We should have started sooner,” Flint says, blaming himself entirely. A week. Again, he leaves it to the last moment, forgetting the extra burdens Silver’s body will bear, compensating for what it lacks. 

“Oh, probably. But a little soreness won’t kill me.” Silver looks up and meets his eyes, and quirks him a little smile. “And it was worth it to watch you patiently explain the proper way to hold a sword ten times to Old Pete.”

“That was _not_ funny,” Flint stomps over to him, and pushes into a seat next to him, moving him over a little to make space. “He’s not even going over the rail, he’s on surgeon’s assistant duty. What he wants to learn fighting for at his age, I’m sure I don’t know.”

Silver huffs a little laugh and leans against him, and it’s an endless delight to feel how he goes relaxed and boneless as Flint takes his weight. That kind of trust, he knows, is not given lightly by a man in pain, and here is Silver offering it to him with open hands. 

Moving slowly, carefully, he takes Silver’s wrist in his hand. His right, the wrist and arm that will be feeling every impact of block, strike, and parry just now. Casting his mind back to lessons learned as a young Naval officer, he runs his thumb firmly up the inside of Silver’s arm, pressing hard as he goes.

“Ohhhh.” That sound is downright obscene, and a quick glance confirms that Silver’s eyes are suddenly half-lidded, his mouth a little open. 

“Shhh. De Groot is at the wheel,” Flint says, encouraged. He turns on the cot so he’s facing Silver, never letting go as he does. “Here. Like this.” He can use both hands now, and work the muscles all up and down Silver’s bare forearm. He bends his head so he can watch his hands at work, and he can almost see the muscles relax as he slowly eases the knots and tightness loose.

Now his upper arm, just as tight and clearly painful, and James gentles his touch when Silver winces. 

“Here,” he says again, and tugs at Silver’s sleeve, and Silver skins out of his shirt agreeably quickly, though he winces a few times. Those falls can’t have helped, Flint thinks, and gets back to work, easier now that he can see what he’s doing.

All that smooth golden skin, and his hands on it, bringing this man pleasure and relief from pain. It’s heady, dizzying, and he has to dip down and press a hard, closed-mouth kiss on the round of Silver’s shoulder before he moves around to the back and starts to work on his neck.

“You’re in an odd mood,” Silver hums, his voice coming from deep down in his chest as he slumps forward, twitching a little only when Flint hits a particularly sore and stubborn knot of muscle. 

Flint drags the blade of his hand hard down the wing of muscle that curves under Silver’s shoulder blade, and soaks in the shiver of pleasure and further dip of Silver’s head as payment beyond his due.

“What, this? I learned this in fencing school. The Master used to punish us for inattention by making us hold _en garde_ for an hour. If we hadn’t had an armorer who knew these tricks, none of us would have survived the week,” Flint tells him, smiling.

“If you tried that with our men, they’d mutiny,” Silver mumbles.

“Undisciplined louts,” Flint agrees, but he can hear the affection in his own voice and knows he isn’t fooling Silver.

The clash of wooden blades travels faintly to them from the aft deck, but it’s all background noise as Flint stands easily from the bed and fetches a cloth. Silver is practically boneless, and just watches him hazily as he lifts the stump from the now-tepid water, and pats it dry. A quick tug has Silver’s trousers off, and he can see the clenched tightness of his thigh. That won’t do, not so close to battle, and he chivvies Silver round until he’s sprawled on the bed, his legs in easy reach.

“This might be a bit more uncomfortable,” is all the warning he gives before pushing the heel of his hand from the crease of Silver’s hip almost down to his knee, with firm pressure all the way.

Silver makes a sound like an overheated teakettle and jackknifes up in bed, whites of his eyes showing, his bad leg jumping and twitching under Flint’s hands. “FUCK!”

“Shhh,” Flint admonishes, and does it again.

“You fucking cocksucking whoremongering cunt,” Silver says conversationally, and then flings himself back down with an arm over his eyes.

“You do carry on,” Flint muses, now rubbing more steadily, working soreness out where he finds it, relentless with the pressure until finally the muscle yields under his palm. Then moving on to the next. “You’ll thank me when it’s over.”

“I doubt that very fucking much,” Silver asserts, muffled by his arm. “Fuck!” 

The other leg gets its share of attention--Flint has seen how Silver rests most of his weight there, especially when moving--all to the sound of Silver’s quiet cursing. It’s almost soothing, and he falls into a rhythm that doesn’t break until he’s done. 

When he finally lifts his hands away, Silver is still and quiet, breathing deeply, but not asleep. Lying naked like this on the bed, he looks like something decadent from one of the paintings he’d seen in galleries with Thomas and Miranda. Every line of him elegantly drawn in curves and angles and shadows, far too luxurious and fine to be framed by the rough cotton blankets of this shipboard cot, even with the gnarled, abrupt scar where part of his left leg should be. James looks, and looks, and thinks that he will never look his fill.

“I’m finished,” he finally says, his voice rough. “Rest now, let your body ease itself for at least an hour. I think you’ll find walking far more comfortable when you next make the attempt.”

“At least cover me with a blanket. My modesty.” Silver grumbles, but finally lowers his arm, and doesn’t look at all upset. His face is flushed pink and his eyes are bright, and he grabs Flint’s sleeve with a tug before he can rise. 

“Come here. No no, no objections.” He tugs Flint close and leans up to kiss him, and the angle is terrible, all noses and chins, but Flint doesn’t care and licks into his mouth, sweet and warm. He spends a long moment drawing that tempting lower lip into his mouth, giving it only part of the attention it deserves, before pulling away.

“I have to go. The watch changes soon, and we’ll be clearing for action shortly. Just a run-through, but still important.”

“James.” Silver doesn’t let him move far, and he’s watching his face with that directness that from the beginning has always been startling and intriguing. “It’ll work.”

“It better.” He kisses him again, quickly, and leaves the cabin.

*

**THEN**

Jack Rackham, for all his creative facial hair and wildly colorful outfits, is one of the sharpest minds Silver has ever encountered, and talking to him is never boring. So when a message needs to be sent over to the _Vainglorious_ regarding a last-minute logistical change, Silver volunteers to ferry it. He’s just standing around now anyway, as the final supplies are loaded on board and all the final arrangements are made.

It’s always odd, stepping aboard the warship. The present is overlaid with memories of when the ship was bright with gilding and red paint, and flaunted great ruby crosses on her sails. Of himself and Flint, barely acquaintances, definitely adversaries, forced together for the first time as a team, and discovering in extremity that they worked disconcertingly well together, in fact. He feels himself smile as he glances towards the waist and the hatch to the ‘tweendecks hold, where he stole the bosun’s whistle. Looking that direction keeps him from staring at the aft gallery, where he’d had his leg smashed to fragments, screaming his throat raw and praying against hope for a miracle.

Sometimes he still feels the mallet strike down in his dreams. On those nights he leaves the bed, so as not to trouble Madi or James with his terror-sweats and thrashings.

Shaking those thoughts away, he makes his way forward to the navigation station, where Jack’s obviously new blue and gold blouse is making him conveniently easy to locate.

“Tell me you’ve come bearing good news about my signal flags,” Jack demands without looking up, before Silver has even reached his side.

“Ah, no? Sorry?” Silver shrugs a little when Jack fixes him with a frazzled glare. He knows their own flags are stowed neatly by the mast, but of Jack’s flags he's heard nothing.

“Wonderful. Marvelous. The whole plan hinges on these signal logs and those flags, and the seamstresses have run out of the red fabric. I sent away to Providence for it, and it came in yesterday. I’ve been throwing coin at them to no fucking avail, and now you bring me no news.” Jack actually throws his hands up in the air, and Silver would find it funny, but this is a legitimately serious problem.

“You’re the last to depart, you have another day. We could possibly stretch it to two,” he points out, frowning. “Surely they’ll be finished by then.”

“Oh, probably,” Jack huffs. “I don’t like it, though. Small problems inevitably lead to larger ones, and my men haven’t been able to train in the proper signals yet. Two days! It’s not enough time.”

“You’ll manage it,” Silver says, hoping it’s true. Flint had said the Navy drilled its midshipmen for months to run signal flags efficiently and without too many errors, and here they are with mere days.

“At least we have the messages pre-planned,” Jack allows, and shuts the signal book with a snap. “So if you aren’t here about my flags, what are you doing here? Aren’t you lot due out on the tide?”

“Yes, well.” Silver glances around the deck at the bustle of the ship. “In the cabin, perhaps?”

“Right. Yes. All right, I suppose you’d better come in and sit down.” Jack’s hair is in wild disarray, and he’s clearly distracted, but the main cabin of the _Vainglorious_ is well-organized and it’s easy enough for Silver to find a seat once he’s ushered inside.

“Do you have a chart of the Caribbean? Including Jamaica? Good.” Silver draws it to him, puzzles over the handwriting for a moment, then taps on a point near Cuba. “The convoy is going to take the Wind Passage between Cuba and Hispaniola, which we knew. What we didn’t know is that they are stopping at Tortuga before turning North and East. It will delay them by a day, perhaps two. We’ve also heard from one of the Maroon chieftains in the Caicos.” He traces their possible course that way with his thumb, as Jack focuses on the chart. “He has a treaty in place with the Spanish that forbids acts of rebellion, but he will aid us in any way we can if we need repairs or revictualling.”

“How are we going to tell Murphy?” Jack asks abruptly, obviously having processed all that and moved on. “He’s been gone a week now.”

“Madi has sent one of her cutters to find the _Lady Mary_. But the rendezvous point hasn’t changed, just the day, so he’ll be in the right place, even if he’s early and the cutter can’t reach him. I hope.” 

“And if they are reinforced? If we are pursued?”

“The plan remains the same. If we are whole and James thinks the odds favorable, we fight. If not, we scatter. Madi’s people will be waiting ashore in each of the three refuges, so as long as you reach safe anchorage, they can cover your boats ashore. After that it’s a matter of attack and delay, but most _Gardacosta_ and the British Navy have little taste for beating the brush for rebels ashore.”

Jack tips back in his chair and regards Silver shrewdly. 

“I must say, with, ah, _James_ leading us into battle and you and your lovely bride handling all the fussy little details of escape and survival, I like our odds rather better than I normally do.” Silver bites his lip, irritated that he’d let that slip, but Jack just rolls onward, as he tends to. “And with our wealthy patron and her loose purse-strings--”

They’re interrupted by a strangely clattery pounding of footsteps on the deck above their heads, and Jack winces, a moment before the door opens and Anne sticks her head in.

“Jack! They still won’t take off their bleedin’ shoes!” 

Instantly derailed, he slumps in his seat. “Fucking, _why_?” he asks her, pleading. “We’ve explained about the damp, and the heat, and the foot-rot. The impossibility of climbing the rigging in footwear. Sliding on wet planking and breaking your neck. Why won’t they take off their shoes?”

Anne shrugs expressively, and nods at Silver, who nods back, fascinated.

“Who won’t take off their shoes?” He wears a boot on deck, because of the danger to his one remaining foot. Flint wears boots, Silver suspects, mostly because he likes how they look, and most captains and named officers and mates do as well, since they’re rarely aloft or running the decks. Nearly every other seaman he’s ever seen goes barefoot as a matter of course. It’s the only way to effectively move on a wet, slippery deck and in the ropes and spars of the rigging.

“The new men off that lugger out of Norway. Something about shark scales, it’s fucking rot, is what it is. They’ll catch hell from the men if they don’t see sense soon.”

“I think I will leave you to your...domestic issues,” Silver says, as delicately as he can as he stands. “Jack, always a pleasure. Anne, best of luck.”

“Oh, my very deepest regards to _James_ ,” Jack drawls suggestively, and Silver winces, though he tries to hide it. He knows that slip will never again go unpunished in this company.

Anne checks him at the door with a light touch to his sleeve, and Silver pauses, curious. They’re not friends, precisely. They don’t chat, or visit the tavern together, or have tea. But he and Anne have always had an understanding that he can’t quite explain. Perhaps it’s a bond between black sheep, he’s thought in the past. Perhaps just a bit of like recognizing like. Or maybe he just loves red hair.

“It’s working out for you, yeah?” She searches his eyes, her gaze direct even though it’s shadowed as always by the brim of her hat. He doesn’t pretend to misunderstand her.

“So far,” he nods, his voice just as low, away from Jack’s hearing. 

“Guess it might not be impossible after all,” she says, almost to herself, seeming satisfied, and knowing something of her history with Max and Jack, he has to nod.

“Won’t know until you try,” he answers, reluctantly, because it’s _Max_ , but unable to bring himself to slap down her hopes. “Second time’s the charm?”

“Don’t be a shit,” she says, but it’s fond, and when she kicks him out of the cabin, a smirk is twisting one side of her mouth up, and he’s smiling too.

*

**NOW**

“STEER SMALL,” Flint bellows back to the helm from where he’s clinging to the foredeck rail, desperate to be heard over the ragged crash of the broadside being fired into the _Penelope’s_ helm. He has danced and twisted her through the three ships of the convoy for nearly four hours now, splitting them like a dog might sheep, but now, with the _Vainglorious_ bearing down on the main transport brigantine half a mile to port, he has to get the _Penelope_ alongside the frigate he’s targeted for boarding before that frigate tears her to pieces. “Steer small, goddamn you! Two points to starboard, bring by the stuns’ls. Heel her over, Mr. De Groot!” 

He can feel the shudder and jerk as cannonballs crash into the delicate boards of the prow. Quartered into the wind as they are, they present the smallest possible target, but even so, the great guns of the British frigate _Salome_ , eighteen pounders all, are wreaking untold damage on the hull.

“Gun crews, aim high! Target deck and rigging only,” he hears Silver bawl into the din, and then their own guns answer again. Through the black billows of smoke he sees the frigate’s quarterdeck swept clean by their nine-pounders and bow chasers, the only guns they can bring to bear at this angle, but trained high and forward, they are having good effect. The _Salome_ has lost a mainsail and her rigging is dangling shards of spars and yards, shattered and broken, her canvas holed and tattered.

“Nice shooting,” he calls down to the waist, and then ducks behind the rail again as the frigate rolls up on the swell, the gunports gape open, and the muzzles of the eighteen-pound great guns belch fire.

A sickening crack that he can feel all the way through his bones has him diving back towards the waist, and just in time, as the mainmast, already weakened, breaks below the top yard and crashes down towards the bowsprit. The _Penelope_ slews sideways as the wind changes in her sails, the fallen canvas dragging her to starboard, and Flint’s mind is cold and fast and running numbers and angles and calculations, two points starboard has now become four, bringing her by more quickly, and he stands to gauge the distance between the ships.

“GET THAT WRECKAGE CLEAR. Vanguard, stand by to board!” His voice is hoarse in his throat with gunsmoke and screaming. There’s blood on his hands from where he’d had to drag a body away from the rail and he presses himself to the mizzenmast to let the riggers run past to get up the foremast shrouds and clear the fallen sails that have tangled there. The vanguard is there, crouched in the poor shelter of the waist, all but Silver who is still haranguing the gun crews into one more round of fire before they go over the rails.

“Silver! With me. Mr. De Groot, keep her steady as she goes.” De Groot, bleeding from a wound in the head that a quick glance tells Flint isn’t serious, bares his teeth at him and holds the wheel hard on its current course as the _Penelope_ fights her rudder and bucks hard, and Flint wrenches his mind from the ship and her state and her course and stares across the narrowing sea at the frigate.

This, now. This moment. Like when the British escort ship, now engaged with the _Vainglorious_ , had realized their deception with the flags and signals and had drummed the Beat To Quarters, too late, since all their advantage of size and range had already been lost. When the guns had been run out and the battle first engaged. His blood surges, hot and heady through his veins. Everything is clear, beautiful, so crystalline and perfect that he can see every splinter of the rail he is bound to cross with a blade in his hand. His enemy will be waiting for him and will try to kill him, a simple and brutal and primal dance that holds no prevarication, no uncertainty, no indecision or second thought. He will kill or be killed, and the glory of that struggle surges him up to the rail with the first of the vanguard as soon as Silver calls the distance.

“Ready,” he snarls to the men clustered at his back. “Ready now, lads,” and he can feel their eagerness beating at him, pushing at him like a hot wind, urging him forward. “Here we go!” 

“Go go go!” Darby, spotting from the aft rail, screams, and Flint hurls himself through the choking clouds of gunsmoke, over the rail and the water and slams hard into the planking of the side of the frigate. She’s heeling back, Darby had timed the call perfectly, and the slant of her side aids him as he scrambles up, getting a hand on the rail. A blade comes down towards his face and he ducks sideways and lunges upwards the last few inches, grabbing the gunwale rail and yanking himself over it, the man behind him hot at his heels. 

He glances back just long enough to see Silver make it over the rail with a rough shove from Shaw, and that’s all he can spare, because the man before him has a blade swinging at his thigh and the planks are already slick with blood. He cuts a short chop upward into red serge with his dagger, kicks the body off his blade, and runs forward to the next. No time for pretty moves or subtlety. Just slash and block, chest to chest with a man larger than he, foul breath in his face, until he heaves forward with a shout and gets his blade up and across a bearded throat. 

Time slows down.

He’s grinning wildly. Alive, alive, never more alive than this, so close to death. He cuts down a British sailor, battles another for long minutes before getting the best of him and killing him too. He steps over the body in its blue shirt and white duck trousers, and moves forward another few paces. The foredeck with its gaudily uniformed officers is steps away, and a flood of his own men passes behind him to swarm the Marines clustered by the jolly-boat, using it for cover as they fire and reload their muskets. The crisp pop-pop of pistols is echoing in his ears. He hears the heavy, dull thud of a long gun, feels the recoil in the planking under his feet even as he hurdles the stairs and the bodies on them, knows that Darby should be below handling the gun crews if possible, but he has other things to worry about.

“Sir. We yield.” No one on the foredeck has a sword or pistol raised. The captain’s face is florid with rage and fear, Flint can almost smell it on him, the desire to keep fighting, the knowledge that he’ll lose if he does. A snarl rattles in his throat. He wants to give no quarter here, not to these servants of His Majesty, who have human lives chained like cattle below, who are denying him his fight. He steps forward, blades coming up, fire burning him, driving him on, and then someone dares to step between him and them.

“Your surrender is accepted. Place your weapons on the deck and step to the side.” John _fucking_ Silver, one leg and all, walks forward calmly, not even looking at Flint, at his back, seething like a storm denied. Behind him, sounds of battle are still heard here and there, swords clanging shrilly, a man screaming, another swearing a steady, hopeless stream of words. Gunsmoke still curls around them, heavy and choking, but Flint can see now that his men have won the ship. They’ve taken her.

He breathes.

Darby and Shaw come up the other side of the deck. Darby’s limping hard and has a cloth tied around his thigh, and Shaw looks stunned, but he’s still moving, still following orders. They gather the weapons on Silver’s command, toss them to waiting hands on the main deck. It’s dreamlike, in the smoke, and Flint stands still, blood dripping onto his boot from the blade of his naked sword. 

It’s that that gets him moving. He leans down and wipes the blade clean on some redcoat’s jacket, then slides it home. Standing back up is harder than it should be, and his hand goes to a pain in his side and comes away red. Cut, then, somewhere between the rail and here, but not too badly since he’s still on his feet. He moves to the rail, leaves Silver in command of the prisoners, and looks across to the _Penelope_.

She’s in better shape than he might have expected, for a sloop in a ship-to-ship action against a frigate. But there are shattered holes lining her hull. Her mainmast is broken, gaping like a missing finger, and her mainsail spar is shot clean away. Already he can see men swarming up the shrouds there, hacking at rigging, freeing her lines so the true damage can be assessed. And he doesn’t even know the butcher’s bill yet.

“Is there damage below? The slaves?” He asks Silver, his voice tinny in ears half-deaf from gunfire, as soon as he can reach his side.

“We’re tying up now and I haven’t heard,” Silver answers him shortly. There’s blood on his face too, in his hair, staining his shirt, but it doesn’t look to be his own, and Flint can relax one more piece of the devil inside him. “Grapples, there! Look to the ladders!” The wooden ladders slam down to the rail from the _Penelope._ Now movement back and forth will be easy.

One quick glance to take in the frigate. Everyone alive is doing their jobs. Prisoners being tied. Wounded being tended to. He looks to port, and the _Vainglorious_ appears to still be battling, in close quarters with her opponent. He sees the muzzle flashes on the deck, even through the smoke of battle. The third ship, so far to windward when they’d closed, is beating back towards them, and Christ, where is Murphy? If she manages to get to them unopposed, they’ll lose this ship and the slaves they’re trying to rescue.

“Rackham’s on the wrong side of her,” he grits to Silver. “Her port broadsides won’t come to bear on the third ship, not like this.”

“Murphy’ll come,” Silver answers, and he sounds exhausted, but sure. 

“Sail! Sail!” The call goes out from the watch on the _Penelope._

“That’s Murphy, or we’re dead,” Flint says, philosophical about it now, and Silver glares at him, a sight much more fearsome through the mask of blood on his face.

“Two ships, looks like,” the call comes down. “The _Lady Mary_ and a sloop behind her, looks like. Flying the black!”

They’re not the only ones to spot the sails and the black flags. The third British ship, an escort, sheers off hard to northward. He watches her sails lose the wind then find it again on her new heading. She’s running, all taste for battle gone when the numbers are against her like this. And the fighting on the second ship, the big transport, stops suddenly. She’s surrendered.

It had been a thing for careful planning. They had to get in close to the convoy without raising alarm, so only two ships could be seen on approach, and those flying false flags and sending current British Naval signals. But after the joining of battle, Murphy and his ship, towing a ketch rigged to look like a sloop, would skew the firepower firmly in their favor. Ship to ship, at even strength, the Navy would have fought it out. Four to three, they have no taste for.

Flint staggers, his left leg suddenly weak under him.

“Hup,” Silver says next to him, and grabs him, heaving a shoulder under his arm. “You’re bleeding all down your side, did you know that? SINDLER,” he shouts for the cook, who doubles as the surgeon, until they can get to Howell on the _Vainglorious_. “SINDLER TO ME.”

“It’s not that bad,” Flint assures him, voice still echoing in his ringing ears, as if he's hearing through water. He hates this. The dizzy, sick feeling of a fight ended, even in victory. The world blurring back to normal speed and focus, speeding up again, disorienting him. When he’s not injured it passes in a moment, but perhaps he’s bled more than he realizes. 

“I think I can see a fucking rib,” Silver notes tightly, and the world seems to be going dim and gray at the edges, and Flint’s last wild thought is that this is terribly inconvenient, before a sucking black hole pulls him under.

*

**LATER**

For the hundredth time in a day and a half, John Silver sends fervent prayers of thanks to a God he doesn’t believe in for Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny. 

The aftermath of a battle like this is so hugely overwhelming, so complex and so critical, that he finds himself rather grateful, in retrospect, that both other times he’d been involved in something similar, he’d ended up flung into the sea.

Jack, every line of him showing the same weariness Silver feels, steps up beside him to view the repairs to _Penelope’s_ mainmast. A spare spar has been raised and fished to the stump, all the way to the deck, giving it a queer lopsided look. But it stands straight and solid, and the rigging is up and on, the spars raised. The men raise a ragged, exhausted cheer when a single reef of the mainsail is shaken out, and she takes the wind as if nothing had ever changed. The constant thump of the pumps keeping her bilges clear of water still carries on; they won’t be able to patch some of the waterline holes until they can make port. 

They are low on food, water, and bandages. The last sheet of canvas had been used to patch the battered snauw sail that had served them so well in the engagement. Powder and shot are almost fully depleted. But the mainmast is back up, and they’ll be sailing her home. Silver hasn't slept in over 48 hours, but neither have his men. Neither have any of them.

“That’ll do, Mr. De Groot,” Silver says hoarsely. “Jack, thank you. For this, and sorting the prisoners. I had no fucking idea what to do with them, and neither did Murphy.”

Jack shrugs. “I don’t need a half-sunk frigate and neither do you. The lot of them can work out how to get her sailing again, or die out here. It’s all the same to me.”

Anne snorts approvingly. She’d been for leaving them on one of the uninhabited cays, but this is even better, to her mind. 

“The prize crew can get the transport to Maroon Island?” The majority of the slaves had wished to go there, far from any trappings of British or Spanish ‘civilization,’ as a starting point. They can hide the transport easily amid the inlets and shoals of the island, and she’ll stand ready if they ever need her again. The injured and the others will come back with the _Vainglorious_ to Nassau. 

“They’re well-crewed and have more than enough provisions.” He turns to glance back at the cabin. “How is Flint?”

“Still unconscious. Howell says it’s not unexpected, given how much blood he lost.” Silver clenches his jaw against the invective that wants to pour out. In addition to the cut to his ribs, James has a hole in his thigh that had filled his boot completely with blood, and numerous other small injuries to his arms and one shoulder. 

“Go easy on him,” Anne advises unexpectedly. “Carn’t feel nothin’ when it happens to you fast like that. He didn’t even know it himself till it was all over.”

It still beggars belief to Silver that Flint _hadn’t noticed_ he was wounded, but he nods at Anne anyway, forcing himself to relax.

“He’ll wake up soon.” He has to. Silver can’t run this ship himself. For god’s sake, he doesn’t even know in which direction home lies, from here.

“I’m sure he will,” Jack says, and he clearly thinks it’s so obvious a conclusion that Silver finds some comfort in it. “The longboat is coming back around. We’ll see you in Nassau, Silver.”

“It does seem likely,” Silver answers, and clasps hands with them both before seeing them over the rail. Then Darby is at his elbow with another question, another repair, and he turns away and back to the ship.

That night, he falls into bed beside the still-unconscious Flint without even thinking about it, so tired he is dizzy with it, staggering like a drunk. He sleeps a sodden, heavy seven hours, and when he wakes, James is watching him, and he remembers that they’ve won.

Long ago, John Silver realized that he could not really care passionately for ideals. Only people. And people, he cared too much for, too deeply and completely, improvidently and without restraint; so for many years, he did not permit himself to care for anyone at all. Even recently, he knew that if he started thinking of the great injustices that Madi and Flint fight so desperately to conquer in terms of their human parts--the woman holding her child in her arms, who stepped out into the sunlight on the deck of the frigate yesterday and laughed with tears in her eyes; the old man who was being carried to the light by two youths who were clearly devoted to him; the queenly lady with a burn on her face and deep marks of shackles around her wrists and ankles and fiery eyes--he would sink beneath the agony of it, crushed to nothing, and never again surface.

But looking at James in the light of this morning, his green eyes as clear as the peridots Silver had once seen on a lady’s pendant, free of shadows now; the way his face looks so young even though he’s stubbly with a need to shave, the way looking at Silver always seems to make him smile? Silver thinks perhaps that he can love these people so much that their causes and crusades become his own. Perhaps he will never value the cause above their lives. But what is a cause without crusaders to fight for it?

“Good morning,” he says, and feels his face warm with a slow, easy smile, the one that is completely honest and open and that he knows writes his heart upon his face. “Five hundred and eighty nine people are sailing to freedom today.”

**Author's Note:**

> I think this series might be done? This feels like such a great place to stop, and I have so many other things to write. I'm not sure, though, so don't hold me to it. SO MUCH LOVE to this fandom, to everyone who has commented on this series and shared the links and left kudos. You all are incredible!


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